Season's greetings Getbig atheists and agnostics!! I trust that those of you in the US survived Thanksgiving and those of you outside the US are building enormous muscles while discussing all the fat Americans and their laughable holiday of obesity!

God Bless!!

Thanks - I hope you had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends MoS. And although it's somewhat early Merry Christmas.

Thanks - I hope you had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends MoS. And although it's somewhat early Merry Christmas.

It was good....busy but good. The wife and I promised ourselves after years of back and forth between families on Thanksgiving and Christmas that we would just attend one Thanksgiving get together and that's it. Suffice it to say one of my sisters threw us a curveball that forced us to end up traveling a bit. Still it was nice, but it made for a very long day!

I was most aggravated because those circumstances prevent me from eating until I get the meat sweats and then pass out into a fat girl coma.

It was good....busy but good. The wife and I promised ourselves after years of back and forth between families on Thanksgiving and Christmas that we would just attend one Thanksgiving get together and that's it. Suffice it to say one of my sisters threw us a curveball that forced us to end up traveling a bit. Still it was nice, but it made for a very long day!

I was most aggravated because those circumstances prevent me from eating until I get the meat sweats and then pass out into a fat girl coma.

HELENA, Mont. – A lawsuit seeking the removal of a Jesus statue near a Montana ski resort will go on after a national group of atheists and agnostics produced a local member who says he is offended by the religious symbol whenever he swooshes down the slopes.

The Knights of Columbus and four individuals had asked a judge to throw out the legal challenge because the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation had not named anyone actually harmed by the statue on federal land next to Whitefish Mountain Resort.

Without such a person, the Knights of Columbus argued, the foundation had no right to bring the lawsuit.

So the foundation found William Cox, an atheist who lives 15 miles from the northwestern Montana resort. Cox submitted a statement that says he frequently goes to Whitefish and has skied many times past the statue, which he considers religious and offensive.

That was good enough for U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen to deny the Knights of Columbus' request Tuesday and to proceed with the lawsuit. A trial is scheduled for March.

"I could just say, `Hallelujah,"' Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, said Wednesday. "It was very obliging of the judge to let it proceed."

Charlie Harball, the attorney representing the Knights of Columbus, said he had anticipated the judge's ruling but he believed the motion to dismiss had compelled the atheists to produce a person as they are required.

"If we hadn't filed the motion in the first place, we still might not have an individual named," Harball said. "It's kind of forcing people to do what they're supposed to do."

Gaylor said they did not name anyone in the original lawsuit because the foundation wanted to protect that person from any negative response from others in the community.

"We just want to deflect attention away from him. We're at least long distance. We know how heated it gets," Gaylor said.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation filed the lawsuit in February, arguing the U.S. Forest Service is unconstitutionally sanctioning the 57-year-old statue maintained by the Knights of Columbus. The statue was originally conceived by World War II veterans who saw similar shrines while fighting in the mountains of Europe.

Several out-of-state conservative and religious groups have pledged their support in defending the statue's existence on its 25-by-25 foot patch of land, saying it represents the history and heritage of the region.

The Forest Service initially decided last year not to reauthorize a special-use permit for the statue, but reversed that decision and said its historic nature allowed it to remain.

Attorneys for the Forest Service said in court filings they had no position on the Knights of Columbus' request to dismiss the lawsuit.

HELENA, Mont. – A lawsuit seeking the removal of a Jesus statue near a Montana ski resort will go on after a national group of atheists and agnostics produced a local member who says he is offended by the religious symbol whenever he swooshes down the slopes.

The Knights of Columbus and four individuals had asked a judge to throw out the legal challenge because the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation had not named anyone actually harmed by the statue on federal land next to Whitefish Mountain Resort.

Without such a person, the Knights of Columbus argued, the foundation had no right to bring the lawsuit.

So the foundation found William Cox, an atheist who lives 15 miles from the northwestern Montana resort. Cox submitted a statement that says he frequently goes to Whitefish and has skied many times past the statue, which he considers religious and offensive.

That was good enough for U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen to deny the Knights of Columbus' request Tuesday and to proceed with the lawsuit. A trial is scheduled for March.

"I could just say, `Hallelujah,"' Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, said Wednesday. "It was very obliging of the judge to let it proceed."

Charlie Harball, the attorney representing the Knights of Columbus, said he had anticipated the judge's ruling but he believed the motion to dismiss had compelled the atheists to produce a person as they are required.

"If we hadn't filed the motion in the first place, we still might not have an individual named," Harball said. "It's kind of forcing people to do what they're supposed to do."

Gaylor said they did not name anyone in the original lawsuit because the foundation wanted to protect that person from any negative response from others in the community.

"We just want to deflect attention away from him. We're at least long distance. We know how heated it gets," Gaylor said.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation filed the lawsuit in February, arguing the U.S. Forest Service is unconstitutionally sanctioning the 57-year-old statue maintained by the Knights of Columbus. The statue was originally conceived by World War II veterans who saw similar shrines while fighting in the mountains of Europe.

Several out-of-state conservative and religious groups have pledged their support in defending the statue's existence on its 25-by-25 foot patch of land, saying it represents the history and heritage of the region.

The Forest Service initially decided last year not to reauthorize a special-use permit for the statue, but reversed that decision and said its historic nature allowed it to remain.

Attorneys for the Forest Service said in court filings they had no position on the Knights of Columbus' request to dismiss the lawsuit.

The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. - Albert Einstein

That is a typo, it should read"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good."

There you go, you just told a foully flagrant lie (which I corrected above) and implicated yourself further in the snare of sin and lawlessness. Why am I not surprised to see atheists lie since atheism is one giant lie itself? No, there's no typo and you know it because these verses rightly single you out and neatly condemn you, you fool (that's just what the Scripture says about you). Even if your lie were taken seriously, that just means there is a God and humans are fools and wicked sinners which is true (in a sense).

dude sounds like a retard, his use of the english language is downright upsetting.

Anyway to his analogy of aliens and god, I suppose those who do believe in aliens pose no real threat to the public at large, there is no centralized office like the vatican, there is no movement against gay rights based on alien belief. There were no crusades, no jihads in the name of aliens, no child molestation, no tax exempt status etc.

I suppose to a stupid person it appears arguing against aliens and god are one in the same, however, upon further inspection it is obvious one is much more intransigent and problematic.

From the highly-acclaimed Dispatches current affairs show comes a comprehensive look at the history of atheism and whether it can rightly be considered as the rational alternative to religion. Award-winning journalist Rod Liddle speaks to the world's most renowned scientists, theologians and philosophers and asks them the questions we have always wanted to ask ourselves. These include what happened before the Big Bang? Can Richard Dawkins really contend that the nature of our religious beliefs can best be compared to the spreading of a flu virus? Liddle weighs up the evidence from all sides and the answers that are presented throw up many thought-provoking arguments which reflect on our contemporary society, our history and human nature itself.

From the highly-acclaimed Dispatches current affairs show comes a comprehensive look at the history of atheism and whether it can rightly be considered as the rational alternative to religion. Award-winning journalist Rod Liddle speaks to the world's most renowned scientists, theologians and philosophers and asks them the questions we have always wanted to ask ourselves. These include what happened before the Big Bang? Can Richard Dawkins really contend that the nature of our religious beliefs can best be compared to the spreading of a flu virus? Liddle weighs up the evidence from all sides and the answers that are presented throw up many thought-provoking arguments which reflect on our contemporary society, our history and human nature itself.

Agnosticism has a certain appeal as a more moderate form of atheism. Agnosticism, for our purposes, refers to the belief that the existence (or lack thereof) of god is unknowable. I’ve generally found that theists tend to have more respect for agnostics due to their holding of a more “reasonable” position. However, this is misguided: When it comes to the belief in god, agnosticism is logically unsound at best and intellectually cowardly at worst. Many agnostics are cowardly in the sense that they use agnosticism as a cop-out for not thinking hard about religious questions. Many agnostics do not actually deal with the epistemological question of whether we—as humans with reason—can know whether there is a god; Rather, they deal with the subjective personal question of whether they believe in a god: “Do you believe in god?” “I don’t know!” And, because agnosticism is a more socially acceptable position to hold, there is an incentive not to think.

However, there are agnostics that actually make arguments for agnosticism. Past thinkers have demonstrated that these arguments are flawed but agnosticism has been popular enough that it is valuable to be reminded of the argument against agnosticism. Agnostics believe that the existence of god is neither provable nor disprovable. Thomas Huxley wrote how he came to develop the term:

“When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last, I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain ‘gnosis,’–had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble…So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of ‘agnostic.’ It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the ‘gnostic’ of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant. To my great satisfaction the term took.”

The most effective way to respond to agnosticism is through reductio ad absurdum. If we ought to be agnostic on the existence of God because there is no way to disprove his existence, then we ought to be agnostic towards a lot of seemingly ridiculous things. We could start in the domain of religion: For one, if we are agnostic regarding the existence of a single god, the same argument holds for multiple gods. So, we must, to be consistent, be agnostic toward polytheism. Additionally, what about the argument that gravity is not simply caused by a really large number of ridiculously strong invisible fairies dressed in drag pushing down on you and other objects? Using the argument from agnosticism, this cannot be disproved so we need to maintain an agnostic stance…which is absurd.

The problem is that agnostics misapply the scientific method. Bertrand Russell puts it best when discussing his famous teapot example: Russell offers the example of a small (basically invisible given current technology) teapot between Earth and Mars revolving around the sun. Russell claims, “But if I were to go on to say that [the teapot exists], since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.” The presumption underlying Russell’s argument is that the burden of proving a deity’s existence lies with the theist. It makes little sense that the nonbeliever has a burden to disprove seemingly absurd arguments, whether they refer to a teapot, invisible beings, or a belief in god. In all other realms of science, the burden of proof lies with the individual who is making the assertion. Why should it be any different when it comes to religious matters?

Agnosticism is starting to become quite popular these days; everyone seems to be seeking refuge in it. Its perceived to be the safest route for the secular man. For those unfamiliar with it, agnosticism is basically the belief that there is no way to know whether or not there is a God. The agnostic therefore neither believes nor disbelieves in God, since both the theist and the atheist fail to conclusively prove the existence of one. There are different forms of agnosticism with varying definitions (e.g. ignosticism); but at the end it boils to the agnostic being someone who refrains from taking a stand and defends his ignorance.

Here’s the problem with the entire agnostic world view. It is based on one fundamentally flawed precept; and that is the assumption that the proof for God is an empirical one. It rests on the belief that if there was to be a proof for God then it would be very much like a philosophical or scientific proof which could be repeated by any one at anytime and would always yield the same result. Since nothing like that exists, the agnostic ignorantly yet confidently says, ‘There’s no way to know’.

What the agnostic fails to realize is that empirical proofs exist for things that are confined to the material world; things to which the laws of nature apply, things that are within the realm of human comprehension. God by definition is far beyond all this. How then does one expect to find an empirical proof for something that is metaphysical? How then does one apply science to the One that created science?

The proof for God is not an empirical one but an experiential one. It is not like a mathematical proof that is based on fundamental axioms rather it is an experiential proof like the proof for love. How would one prove that love exists? Certainly not by running scientific experiments and by debating with philosophers. We all know that love exists since it is a phenomenon that we’ve all experienced.

In the same way God cannot be proven through abstract proofs and speculative theology as Imam Al-Ghazali once said. Faith is something that is realized through contemplation and experience. The phenomenon of faith and the issue of finding God simply can’t be treated as a mere philosophical problem to which an abstract proof is sufficient.

Hypothetically speaking, let’s say I was to give you a concrete proof for God’s existence right now. Assume that I’ve told you what it was and you see no way of arguing against it. It’s foolproof; flawless. Would you all of a sudden start believing in God just because of an argument you can’t rebut? Would you change you entire lifestyle and live in accordance with God’s will just because of one argument? Most people won’t. You believe in God when you realize that He exists, not when you are told He exists.

The issue of faith is directly related to experience. Finding faith and God is a journey that is ought to be undertaken; it requires a combination of the mind and the heart. Its not about blindly following faith or relying entirely on your brains; it’s the convergence of the two in perfect harmony.

There are numerous evidences of God all around, the greatest proof for the Creator is creation itself. The only ones who will see these evidences and accept them are the ones that will sincerely seek God, those who look for the truth. God in the Quran constantly pushes the reader to ponder over the world around him and to realize the beauty of God’s creation. He further says in a hadith qudsi, “Take one step towards Me, I will take ten steps towards you. Walk towards me and I will run towards you.” Those who ask God to guide them are the ones that will be guided. God is to be found where he claims to be, He doesn’t claim to be in books of philosophy but He does claim to be in the Quran. so I encourage you to read it.

Do Muslims just hate everyone? You are a confused individual, you encourage others to watch a documentary hosted my a man who sees Muslims as Savages and promotes agnosticism, and when you discover this truth then go on some crazy rant about agnostics and how their is absolute proof of God, which even the smartest theists disagree with you on. Belief in GOD is faith based, it could be nothing more. If their was absolute proof for GOD everyone would simply believe, in the same way everyone believes in Gravity when shown empirical evidence and witnesses it for them-self.

The fact is you desperately want their to be a GOD, even if their isn't one, so you use conformational bias to gather information that proves GOD exists for YOU. Choosing to believe in a GOD is cowardly and a sign that one cannot handle the reality of existence, just like in the Movie 'Life of pi' that suggested believing in GOD is a more comforting story even if it isn't True, so why not just believe in it.